Whale

3 comments on this post.

The Holg:

June 15th, 2010 at 3:26 am

As we Germans have also learned that whales aren’t fish, we usually call them “Wal” (singular) and “Wale” (plural) these days, rather than “Walfisch(e)”. (But capitalized either way, as all German nouns are.)

Marcus:

June 15th, 2010 at 8:37 am

Just coincidence that ‘weal’ means a similar thing and has a similar spelling?

Pericles Nicolaides:

June 17th, 2010 at 7:18 am

I believe that Wales (Galles in French) refers not to “foreigners” but specifically Gauls, i.e. Celts. For the same reason Celtic Irish is called Gaelic and Celtic Scottish is called Gàidhlig.

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